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I do a ton of live streaming of me painting. I must be honest though, sometimes I feel very awkward most of the time doing it. There is this pressure to treat it as a performance and to entertain, but the reality is that it can be quite boring. I find myself saying the most non-sequitur phrases...

I never know how to start a blog, especially one that is basically an update on what I have been up to this week. There is too much pressure to write a certain way. I find myself compelled to structure sentences more rigid and less organic. Anyways, here goes…

Times are tough! Money has been tight. Everything is closed down. Things are going bonkers. It is not easy being an artist in these strange times. I have had to get creative with opening up myself to new art opportunities.

This has been something I have been meaning to do for months now. A while back I had a solo art exhibit at the Schmidt Art Center. It was a great success and I was very honored to present my work at such a beautiful gallery. As part of exhibiting at the gallery, you were asked to give an artist talk at the opening. Well, up until the very last minute of preparing for the show I had little to no time to write and prepare for a speech.

Occasionally when I get a little lazy, I go on a YouTube video binge. Usually on topics that I have been particularly interested in at that time. One of the more recent escapades in YouTube tomfoolery has been watching old Nintendo game play-throughs. It is when you watch someone play and beat an old game from start to finish. I guess I was feeling a bit of nostalgia watching games being played from my childhood.

One of the things I have been struggling as of late has been getting down to the studio to paint.It has been the hardest thing ever since my solo exhibition.I guess part of the drive was gone and part of me did not want to accept the reality that I could only paint early in the morning.It took a few months for me to realize this and jump back on the metaphorical “painting” saddle. Now that I am “back in action” so to speak I am committed to painting again.I am super pumped at the idea of going back to basics.

I wanted to talk about something every artist has to deal with, THE INFAMOUS REJECTION LETTER!!! Oh my GOSH!!! It is the worst let me tell ya!!!

First, I want to backpedal a little by adding a little context to rejection letters. There are many places artists get exposure, up until recently it has been through Galleries. What you do not know is that there are many kinds’ of galleries spaces, but let’s break it down into two categories: profit and nonprofit galleries.

It's the first week of February, let’s do this!!! Time to Crush It!!! I say that phrase to my co-workers often. Usually to get a little chuckle or laugh, but also laced with a little bit of seriousness. I try my best to crush the day. Especially in the mornings, it is the time I can schedule the easiest. In the evenings "Crushing It!!!" can be a little ambiguous. It's the effort that counts I suppose.

WOW!!! I can't believe the first month of 2020 is over. I have been so busy trying to get my calendar structured, my most important task (MIT), and establishing some of my goals for the year that it has literally taken me a whole month just to get it all organized. Not going to lie, I am far from organized, but at least it is written down in some form or another.

At the beginning of each new year, there is always (mostly) a new year's resolution. For some, it is to lose weight, quit smoking, or to spend more time with family. My new years' resolution is to become very acquainted and well versed in the digital art medium. I have tried doing this before to some varying degree of success. One new year's resolution was to draw one digital piece of art for a day. I think I got up to 5 months, maybe only 4. But I missed a day, then I missed another. I tried to make them back up, and the missed days kept compounding. Not before long I was a month behind, by that time I just decided to not even bother. I think back then I was not as rigid with my time blocks and I did not use a calendar or scheduled actions for the day.

It has been a long time since I added anything to my blog. Let's just say I have been busy organizing and planning for 2020. One of the things I have been meaning to do has been to become really well versed in digital drawing. I look forward to exploring this medium and all that it has to offer. I will be posting the work I create during the week. So keep checking up to see what I have drawn...

I am back in action. Painting up a storm, well, not a literal storm but you get the point. Ever since the opening of my show, BYOB: Bring Your Own Burgers I have been keeping a low profile. To be honest, I just sat on the couch and did nothing for the first week after the opening. I slept in, ate a ton of food and just relaxed.

The struggle is real and the journey ever changing. Since my solo show journey is coming to an end, I wanted to try my hand in abstract painting. I had this idea of doing assembly line abstract pieces. The concept was to break down each layer into a single color of paint. Adding a new layer of paint after the previous one dries. What I had intended on happening was the paint would dry by the time I finished the first layer and then I would proceed to apply my second color.

It's just another day in paradise in Pierson-Land. The finish line to my Ronnie Coleman painting is in sight. Slowly I have added substantial progress to the piece. Frankly, I have accepted the fact that I will never truly finish the piece. The reality of the matter is that none of my work is ever finished. I want to start working on other things. Working on the same piece day in and day out is not exciting. It is like doing assembly line work, very monotonous, but it is a means to an end.

(A little backstory, I actually had started this blog post, forgot to save, and lost all of it. ​)

I have been going through a time scheduling renaissance. Out of necessity I had to wake up at 4 AM just get my three hours of painting in for the day. I set a goal for myself to paint everyday, with the goal of painting for three hours. I would usually hit my goal mark, but lately I have been slacking off. A few reasons for this have been I started teaching at a new college that has a very long commute so I have had to alter my daily schedule to compensate. The overall wear and tear of having to get up at 4 AM has started to take its toll on me mentally and physically. Things have been dividing my attention more than I have liked it to and so I had to split my time that would normally be studio time.

I am going to keep this week’s blog post short and sweet. Recently, I have been backing up many of my old time-lapse and art-studio videos onto YouTube. There are a few reasons for backing up these old videos, my hard drive space on my iPhone has become rather full due to the ever-growing photo library of my daughter and my daily live stream videos being saved on my iPhone...

Every day has its challenges, mountains and hurdles to navigate. Personally, my challenge has been to work on the same painting day in and day out without fail. I have had my fair share of struggles working on the same painting for the last six months, but it has been a very educational experience. I learned specifically of what not to do when tackling a large painting such as this. If I were to start this painting all over again I believe I could complete it in half the time. Hindsight is 20/20 though, I can't change the past. I just have to learn from my experiences, and this has been one heck of an experience.

I paint every week, for roughly 15-21 hours total. Typically, I try to paint 3 hours a day but often life happens and I am unable to accomplish this feat. Lately, I have been trying to document 50% to 80% of all my painting sessions. As part of this documentation I have been posting long format videos on YouTube.

Journaling gets a bad rap sheet. I remember when I was a little kid my sister had a diary and I thought it was such a girly thing to do. I was a kid, what did I know? Right? But as I got older and increased my understanding and knowledge. I believe journaling to be a highly underused strategy for growth.

Any skill worth learning involves practice and a lot of it. I remembered once hearing the phrase it takes ten thousand hours to master a skill and there is some truth to it. It may not take ten thousand hours but if you spent that amount of time drawing or painting you are almost guaranteed to be a master. If not, maybe it requires another thousand. Who knows, you just need to spend a lot of time practicing.

Goals can be foggy, vague and ill defined. I have struggled in the past with clearly defining my goals and for that I have fail more often than I would like to admit. I failed to determine what my main priorities were in the morning. I had researched, listened and read various habits highly productive people used during their mornings. In doing so I tried establishing a morning habit that would set me up on the right path for a productive day. It included journaling, affirmations and a form of meditation. It was great at the beginning it became a bouncing off point to propel me to a highly productive day. I would do this before I started my day in the art studio. I was very satisfied with the initial outcome.

If I were to be honest, I am not an expert on the topic of content creation. Even though I try my best to maintain a consistent social media presence. Content creation is key for survival in todays world of marketing. It has the ability to be incredibly powerful and is quite possibly the cheapest way of promotion. You do not need a marketing and promotion firm or department, all you need is a smartphone, some free social apps, and some time.

Another year has passed, and I hope to be a little bit wiser. Big emphasis on hope, I just wanted to take a moment to express my thanks for everyone. My Family, My Friends, My Wife, and Little Miss Adalee. When I began writing this it was my birthday, and it was pleasant. My birthday may have been uneventful, but It was spent with someone I love.

When You Come to the Boundaries of What You Know: It is Time to Make a Few Mistakes

By Thomas Matthew Pierson

Much that has to do with drawing, painting, and anything involving art is the exploration of the unknown. I think when we first begin our path as artist, we have this assumption of what art is. We have this ideal vision of what a drawing should be. In some regard there is some truth to this. If we didn’t have standards, the quality of animation, special effects, and illustrations would not be as good as they are now. But to the laymen, this is what people assume art to be, it’s the more commercial, more popular distributed forms of art. Many do not go into the minutiae of the art-world. That is perfectly fine, but for the scholarly pursuit of the arts, it is not good to be ignorant to artworks you do not fancy.

A common theme of mine is fear. Fear of action, fear of trying, fear of failing. The reason I write about these topics is because deep down I am tackling my fears. All the while trying to strengthen myself mentally. I don’t fancy my writing to be particularly exceptional and nor do I try to hide it. The reason why I write is because I want to become a better writer. How does one improve their writing? You improve by writing. I write because it makes me uncomfortable, but I do not fear it. Every act of writing is a shot, a chance to improve.

Do you ever avoid doing something because you are afraid of making a mistake? Are you afraid that you will fail? Well let me open a can of worms for you; Not even trying is tantamount to failing. I fail all freaking day; my whole art career is a failure. But guess what, I am a winner. Because every failed painting, which is all of them, has made me a better artist. Every shitty drawing, I have done in my life; Which is almost all of them, has made me a better artist.

I don't know if you know this, but artists are notoriously self-conscious. Many are afraid of making mistakes, myself included. As an artist, as a person, you must not let that self-doubt control you. I speak about this because I know all too well how our internal struggles can dictate our actions. Art is the same way, doubting ones-self can sideline your progress. It can make you comfortable, cause you to take less chances with your artwork. It can lead you not applying for that exhibition, submitting to an art gallery, and even not even bothering to paint.

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